First post of the year

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A very Happy New Year to you all.


We started the week with a public holiday. With Nicky only getting the statutory holidays this year we decided to try and make the most of them. After having a lovely Christmas Day, we decided on Boxing Day to travel up north to Uretiti. The weather wasn't brilliant when we got up, but it wasn't raining, so we packed a goodly supply of food and hit the road. After a quick stop in Mt Albert to deliver presents to the Moss-Mason's we headed north through Helensville to avoid the reported traffic jams on SH1.


It was lunchtime when we got to Uretiti, and very quiet. As soon as we walked over the dunes and got to the beach we knew why - the wind. It was pretty terrific. We set up our wind break and spread out our rugs, and within minutes they were covered with the sand that was being whipped up by the wind. We ate some lunch but the sand was spoiling it so we decided to move on.


A gentle drive down the cost took us to Mangawhai Heads and the surf beach. The sun started to come out, the wind dropped a little and we found a sheltered spot in the rocks and had a much more pleasant afternoon.





We decided to stop in Wellsford on the way back for a cup of tea. The only cafe we could find open was Cafe Cozy - the tea was very good, the service great, and the warm Apple Crumble muffin was fantastic.


We drove back down SH1 as we were aiming for the cinema at Albany. The road was quite busy in parts but always free flowing. We got to Albany almost an hour before the 8.55pm showing of The Iron Lady (it's about Mrs Thatcher), so we had a wander round the parts of the mall which we could get to and did some window shopping. We enjoyed the film but I felt it focused too much on Mrs T dealing with the death of Denis, and not enough time on what happened while she was in office.


To finish the day off we drove back through Ponsonby to see the Christmas lights on Franklin Road. By the time we got home we were ready for our beds.


The weather still wasn't brilliant on Tuesday, and after three days of gadding about we diced to have a quiet day at home. Nicky got to grips with writing our annual newsletter facilitated by her iPad, and we made a start on a jigsaw.


Nicky was back at work on Wednesday. Things were quiet which was fortunate due to the reduced staffing levels. She had her annual appraisal on Friday which went well.


The major excitement for me this we was the arrival of my iPhone - I have finally taken the plunge. This has been motivated by a number of factors. I have never liked texting on "conventional" mobile phones, even when using predictive texting, and it is something I use much more here, both with family and customers. The symbols on the keys on my Nokia phone have all but disappeared with wear, making texting even more of a challenge. I discovered reading an article about the yet-to-be-released iPad 3 that Apple had not discontinued older iPhones when releasing new ones, they have just reduced the price. I was very pleased to discover that I could buy a brand new 3G for half the price of a 4S. I also wanted to dedicate my iPod touch to music now that I have bought a good dock connector to attach it to the hi-fi. So, Thursday afternoon was spent getting my iPhone 3G configured, and then much of Friday was dedicated to re-organising my iTunes library and getting onto the iPod.


The end of the week has been rubbish weather-wise. The tropical storm that started blowing in on Wednesday started depositing rain in large quantity on Friday, so we have had the weekend at home. We got the jigsaw finished so decided to have a Harry Potter film marathon and try and watch all eight films. We started yesterday and have just finished the fifth one this evening. Watching more tomorrow or going out will depend upon the weather. We saw the New Year in at home as we had both consumed more wine with our evening meal of steak, mushrooms and asparagus than we though was save for us to drive, but we did see some some fireworks in the distance.


Jancis Barlow arrived in NZ for her summer visit yesterday, and called in to see us this morning. It was good to catch up again.


That's all for now. We hope you all have an excellent 2012.

Take care,

Rick

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